Chicago teachers mull contract details, continue strike

Emanuel calls the walkout 'illegal' and pledges to seek court order to stop it

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union ruling body leave the International Union of Operating Engineers hall Sunday after deciding to continue the teachers strike, now in its second week. The earliest school could start is Wednesday. (Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune)

What was thought to be a done deal unraveled Sunday as Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis was unable to sell union delegates on ending the teachers strike, likely leaving more than 350,000 Chicago Public Schools students locked out of the classroom at least two more days.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel late Sunday called the walkout "illegal" and pledged to seek an injunction in court to force an end to the city's first teachers strike in a quarter century.

Delegates had met with Lewis for nearly three hours to review the tentative contract that had been brokered after months of negotiation, but ultimately extended the strike instead.

"They're not happy with the agreement. They'd like it to be a lot better for us than it is," Lewis said. "This is the deal we got. This is not a good deal by any stretch of the imagination, not (compared) to what our members are (used) to having."

Delegates expressed frustration that they hadn't been given more time to consider the lengthy contract revisions and said they would meet with their members Tuesday, after the Jewish holidays.

Lewis acknowledged returning to classes Wednesday may be optimistic, considering how difficult it has been for the union and CPS to find agreement on many key issues.

Emanuel called upon CPS officials "to explore every action possible" to return students to school. He has maintained for over a week that the two major sticking points in negotiations — evaluations and the ability to recall teachers who have been laid off — are not legal grounds for a work stoppage.

"I will not stand by while the children of Chicago are played as pawns in an internal dispute within a union," Emanuel said in a released statement.

It would appear the earliest that the district could get an injunction to get students back in school would be for Tuesday classes.

"That's one day they don't have right now," said Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton. "Our signal is that we're serious about getting kids back in school."

Delegates could have ended the strike with a vote Sunday, but only the union's full membership of roughly 26,000 teachers and paraprofessionals can approve the contract. Lewis said delegates wanted more time to digest the details.

"To go on strike is pretty serious stuff, and to call off a strike is pretty serious," said Jay Rehak, a union delegate and veteran English teacher at Whitney Young High School. "We need to go to our members to know how they feel about this. We didn't want to speculate."

The vote Sunday was a surprise. Momentum had been building for a tentative agreement since Friday, when CPS officials and union leaders announced that they agreed upon a framework for a new teachers contract. All that had to be worked out over the weekend was some of the sticky details that had proven so difficult.

In the 10 months since contract talks began, Lewis and union leadership have riled up rank-and-file members with talk of being bullied and disrespected by Emanuel's aggressive approach to education reform. The mayor's push to lengthen the public school day and year without collaboration with the union, struck a nerve with union leaders who, in turn, entered negotiations demanding a 30 percent raise.

Lewis ended talks Friday saying she was "very comfortable" with the deal she was taking to delegates. But as the meeting unfolded Sunday, Lewis had the difficult task of reining in their high expectations.

"Let's be real," Lewis told them at one point, asking them to "have some honest conversations" about the deal in front of them.

"This contract is not going to solve everything," she said.

At one point, Lewis asked, "Are we going back to school?"

Delegates shouted back "No!"

Afterward, some union leaders were seen in tears, exhausted. They had been working 27 hours, around the clock since Saturday morning, on finishing the written language of the agreement.

Rehak said delegates understood the pressure on them to end the strike Sunday.

"That weighed on us," he said. "We thought about our children. We thought about our colleagues. We thought about all of that."

Lewis also said delegates are concerned about up to 120 schools being closed in coming years.

"That's what the big elephant in the room is with our members. They are concerned about this city's decision on some level to close schools," she said. "They are extraordinarily concerned about it. It under-girds just about everything they talked about."

But in continuing the strike, the union runs the risk of losing the support of parents who have backed them up to now.

"The exercise of the power to strike carries with it a special responsibility to those not at the table — the students and parents — and to the realities facing the district," said Terry Mazany, CEO of Chicago Community Trust and the former interim CPS chief. "To press further is to jeopardize the respect and good will gained over the past many months."